“Advent is that unchangeable season when the same concepts, the same words rise over and over again, year after year, to challenge our hearts and plague our minds. Advent is the season of waiting. And who hasn’t waited? When we are little children, we wait for gifts from our parents. When we are young adults, we wait for the lover who will take us to the magic world of Everything. The problem is that the presents pale and the magic world sags all too quickly into reality. But then Advent comes, relentlessly and throughout life, with its words of hope and faith—shepherds and magi, crib and star, Emmanuel and glory—and stirs our hearts to pinnacles of possibility one more time.”
–Joan Chittister, A Monastery Almanac
